Hello again forum! I wrote a post about 2 months ago where I was bothered about my then computer that did not deliver as I wanted. Thanks for your answers then.
I have now sold my computer (Acer Swift X 16) and think I will buy a new one. For the sake of simplicity, I think I will go back to Mac again. Ideally I want a laptop but I could have imagined an iMac.
I have a budget of about 1000-1500 USD. I am then counting on buying something used. Do you have a computer/model you would suggest?
As I said, I am counting on buying a used Mac but want as much RAM as possible. Do you know of any particular model of Mac that has worked very well? If so, please let me know and also let me know if there is any other model you think I should look at.
Initially I feel like I could have imagined an older model of Mac (maybe around 2020) but with a lot of RAM (≥32GB), does that sound like a crazy idea? Or is it smarter to look for a newer model but with less RAM (~16GB)? Please come back with your thoughts.
If you’re planing on getting a Mac just avoid anything with an Intel processor, soon Intel Macs will become what PowerPC Mac’s have been for over a decade, you can use them but won’t be able to update and all programs will stop development for it. Actually any MSeries Mac is great, even the most basic M1 MacBook Air is a great machine, but I suggest getting at least 24gb of ram, if you do render go for a pro or max chip to have extra gpu cores probably an M2 pro MacBook could be in your budget range.
32gb are only available on M1 Max or pro, which one did you get? Either of those are great machines. There’s not much difference between M1 and M2. Every new generation of chips has performance increase but between M1 and M2 it’s barely noticeable. Between M1 and M5 it’s clearly noticeable on benchmarks but imo benchmarks don’t have much importance, as long as you feel your machine is fast and gets the work done, you’re fine, I used to think that I had to renew my machine every 3 or 4 years, but M chips and building quality of Macs are so good that I don’t really feel the need to upgrade.
I haven’t bought the computer yet but I have the opportunity. It’s a MacBook Pro M1 Pro. Is it good enough for Sketchup? I read that the M1 Max is usually recommended for 3D renderings, but to enjoy the difference maybe it’s at the petiteness level?
Previously I have used a MacBook Pro 8GB RAM with Intel processor, worked great for what I wanted to do until the files I was working with became too large. I guess it would still be a better option with a MacBook Pro 32GB RAM with M1 Pro considering the area of ​​use I have? Or should I look for a MacBook Pro with M1 Max?
Hardware isn’t everything.. It’s necessary to keep your models “lean and clean” to be able to work on them in a pleasant way. Models that are bloated in terms of geometry (edges and faces) or obese materials tend to get slow and laggy, no matter what hardware you throw at it.
Be aware of what you download from the 3DWarehouse (if you do) and open them in a separeate instance of SketchUp to inspect them for these things before bringing them into your model..
Do you do renders regularly with engines that can make use of the gpu? If the answer is no, you’re fine with the M1 Pro, it still has a good gpu and single core performance is the same as the M1 Max so there’s no difference on SketchUp or any other 3D software between M1, M1 Pro, or M1 Max.
I recently switched from using Windows for 10 years, back to MacOS. I got an M4 mac mini, with 16 of RAM. Very happy. Coming from a I5 pc with 24 GB of ram with a basic mx250 graphics card.(5 years old). Night and day difference. Granted, it was not a very high spec pc. But, besides raw performance, general useability is greatly improved, both in skp and in general os usage.
I don´t do rendering these days, and rely on nano banana for most of my needs. If I were to do realtime rendering or heavy renderings using Vray or similar, I would not buy a mac.
-Vray is not macos compatible- Edit, it is. Enscape has a macos version. Should be ok, when I need it.
Affinity is cross platform, so no issues. For DWG I had a perpetual license for an old version of bricscad. I rarely used it for checking exports. Still have not found a viable alternative that is inexpensive or free.
SSD is really fast, so for the occasional swapping should´t be a mayor bottleneck. Or is there a specific requirement for extra RAM?
I´m still switching cables to USB C. This is a minor annoyance.
With your budget, you should be able to get a M5 macbook air with 32GB no problem. Or a refurb pro should be within the budget.
Any M series processor is going to feel really fast. It doesn´t necessarily have to be the latest M5 series.
Where did you get that from? V-Ray runs natively on apple silicon macs and it can use ray tracing hardware if you have an M3 chip or newer. Actually my M1 Max Macbook that doesn’t have ray tracing hardware, can handle big scenes better than my RTX 4080 cause its limited to 16gb of vram while my macbook can make use of almost 64gb of ram for gpu rendering.
Vray is mac os compatible. I have it installed on m ymac mini m4 right now. Two years ago I attended a lecture by @eric-s presenting his vray workflow on a macbook pro.
it’s 2026, many of our pro softwares consider 16gb as a low bar. on a mac, aim at 24+
Noted. I’ll correct my previous post. Probably checked a while back…
Rant on. I logged into chaos. Could not find a valid license for my user. I have a studio subscription. Oh well… I had licensing issues a while back, and dealing with chaos user support was less than pleasant. Took a couple of weeks of back and forth, until I had no longer need for Vray. Honestly that’s one of the main reasons why I don’t bother installing Vray anymore. Rant:off.